


i want your midnights

by tamquams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Is Trying His Best, Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish is Bad at Feelings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Getting Together, Late Night Conversations, M/M, POV Adam Parrish, Pre-Relationship, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan-Compliant Language, Sharing a Bed, brief (but not graphic) discussion of suicide, first chapter can be read as stand-alone pre relationship fic, night drives, takes place vaguely during BLLB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamquams/pseuds/tamquams
Summary: He swore he couldhearRonan roll his eyes through the phone. “I was already on my way out the door when you called, Parrish,” he said, and Adam heard a car door opening and closing in the background. “I’m not getting any sleep tonight anyway. Do you wanna come or not?”Rational thought pointed to theor notoption. It was close to three-thirty now, and Adam had his first of two shifts in less than nine hours, andgoing for a drive with Ronancould usually be equated tohaving a near-death experience before sunrise. If calling Ronan was a colossally bad idea, then going for a drive with Ronan was a bad idea roughly the size of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 40
Kudos: 339





	1. CHAPTER ONE

**Author's Note:**

> i have a couple things to say about this: first of all, i wrote this because i couldn't sleep and if i don't get to sleep, neither does adam. second, i really planned on this just being 2k of pre-relationship fluff and banter, but then i just... kept on writing. but then, because i had gone so long without sleep, my brain broke, so. here is the first part, which can be read as a stand-alone pre-relationship fic that's probably canon compliant. hopefully within a day, i'll have finished and polished up the second part, which is long and not canon compliant. we'll see how it goes.

In all honesty, Adam didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

It was a bad idea. It was a colossally bad idea, and this knowledge reverberated through every cell in his brain, but it did not stop him. He acknowledged how bad of an idea it was, and then he stored that tidbit somewhere in the back of his mind so that he could revisit it later and give himself an _I told you so_ sort of lecture, but he did not actually heed his own warning. Instead, frowning at the telephone in his hands with the sort of grim acceptance of a man facing a firing squad, Adam pressed the ‘call’ button.

The phone rang eight times without interruption. Around the third ring, Adam reminded himself that it was unlikely that Ronan would even know where his phone was. Around the fifth ring, he reminded himself that even if Ronan knew where his phone was, it was unlikely that he would answer it. Around the seventh ring, he reminded himself that it was past three in the morning and even Ronan had to sleep sometimes. Just before the ninth ring, he found himself wondering how many times the phone would ring before his call was sent to voicemail, and, as if on cue, the ringing suddenly stopped in Adam’s good ear.

Sure that he had finally reached Ronan’s voicemail box, Adam shook his head slightly and reached for the button to end the call, but then he heard Ronan’s voice through the receiver, abrasive but curious. “Parrish?” 

Adam frowned at the phone in his hand before pressing it back to his ear. “How’d you know it was me?” he asked quietly. 

Ronan snorted. “Who else would be calling from the St. Agnes office at ass o’clock in the morning? I get surprisingly few booty calls from the nuns.”

Adam chanced a glance around the office. It was dark and empty save for him, but he still felt uncomfortably out of place. Technically, he shouldn’t have been in the office; he was only supposed to use the phone for emergencies, and normally he would follow all rules with care and respect, but that night he had just had the strangest impulse to call Ronan. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the way his blood was pulsing through his body faster than he had ever felt it, his heartbeat racing in his ear. Maybe it was God Himself speaking to Adam, pushing him through the unlocked office door, putting the phone in his hand. It didn’t matter how he had gotten there; it mattered only where he went.

“Did I wake you?” Adam asked, ignoring Ronan’s joke. Ronan just snorted again, more loudly.

“No, Parrish, you did not wake me. Is everything okay?” His tone was carefully disinterested, so disinterested that it was obvious how actually interested he was. Something felt off-kilter in Adam’s chest.

“It’s fine,” Adam said dismissively, shaking his head even though Ronan couldn’t see him. “I’m fine. I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have called. Sorry for bothering you.” Once again, he moved to hang up, and once again, Ronan’s voice interrupted him through the receiver.

“No, seriously, what’s up?” He sounded worried now, which just made Adam feel worse. “Should I get Gansey, or, like—”

Gansey did _not_ need to be included in this… whatever it was. “God, no,” Adam said, his face flushing in the darkness. “No, everything’s fine, I just couldn’t sleep. I — I don’t even know why I called.” He swallowed audibly. “I just… couldn’t sleep.”

Ronan was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. When he did speak again, his voice was slow and deliberate, which was also decidedly out of character. “Do you want to go for a ride?”

“It’s fine,” Adam repeated. “You don’t have to — you should get some sleep.”

He swore he could _hear_ Ronan roll his eyes through the phone. “I was already on my way out the door when you called, Parrish,” he said, and Adam heard a car door opening and closing in the background. “I’m not getting any sleep tonight anyway. Do you wanna come or not?”

Rational thought pointed to the _or not_ option. It was close to three-thirty now, and Adam had his first of two shifts in less than nine hours, and _going for a drive with Ronan_ could usually be equated to _having a near-death experience before sunrise_. If calling Ronan was a colossally bad idea, then going for a drive with Ronan was a bad idea roughly the size of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

“I’ll be downstairs in five.”

“I’m already outside.”

Adam was barely in the passenger seat before Ronan was shifting gears and peeling out of the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” he asked mostly out of habit.

Ronan drummed his hands against the top of the steering wheel. “Beats me,” he said with half a shrug.

It took Adam several moments to realize that the Beemer was quiet — free of any and all shitty EDM, electronica, or Murder Squash music. It seemed to be a sign pointing to something, but to what, Adam had no clue. Ronan was not a person who could be described as _easy to read_ — hell, he could barely be described as a _person_ , period — and Adam’s brain was running on too much caffeine and too little sleep for him to even attempt at a successful translation. Ronan, however, seemed to be in the mood to take pity on him.

“So, you couldn’t sleep.” It was not quite a statement and not quite a question, which seemed to be Ronan’s brand when it came to conversations. He ran a red light while Adam tried to scrounge up an appropriate reply.

“Neither could you,” Adam finally settled on.

Ronan clicked his tongue obnoxiously. “ _I_ can never sleep,” he pointed out, taking a turn much faster than necessary. “ _You_ , on the other hand, can fall asleep anywhere, anytime.” Again, not a statement and not a question. Adam was not alive enough to carry this conversation.

“Well, obviously not,” said Adam bitterly, running one hand over the dash and staring pointedly out the windshield. “I’m just as perplexed as you are.”

Ronan ran a stop sign. “I’m not perplexed about shit,” he remarked, his voice overflowing with Trademark Ronan Flippance. “ _Perplexed_. Okay, _Gansey_. No, I’m closer to what you would call _intellectually curious_ , thank you very much. This is fascinating. I have seen you chug three espressos and then fall asleep standing up within the same hour. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a medical mystery.”

Adam wanted to be annoyed, but instead he felt himself barking out one sharp laugh. “I think I might be the most boring medical mystery known to man.”

Ronan shook his head as he sped past the sign announcing they were Now Leaving Henrietta. “You’re a lot of things, Parrish, but you’re not boring,” he said, eyes locked on the road. His grip was tight on the gearshift, but his knuckles were not white; they were stained red and purple, the middle knuckle split wide open. Adam’s brain stored Ronan’s words away for reference, but his eyes landed sharply on the wounds.

“D’you get into a fight?” he asked, the non-sequitur fazing neither of them.

Ronan grunted noncommittally, shifting in his seat, and glanced at Adam once before quickly settling his gaze on the road again. “Nothing serious,” he said after a second, swallowing hard. Adam watched his throat bob with interest he told himself was analytical. “It was just a couple punches.”

“Just a couple punches,” Adam repeated, trying to make all of the words make sense in his head. “With who?”

Ronan shifted gears, grinding his teeth. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Adam said before he could stop himself. His brows furrowed. “Ronan, it matters.” When he risked a glance at Ronan, he saw that the other boy was flushing bright pink.

“It was just Declan,” Ronan grumbled, his jaw twitching. “Now, lay off.” Adam, who had opened his mouth to say something else, clicked his teeth together. “I didn’t pick you up just so you could interrogate me.”

But Adam was nothing if he was not insistent. “Well, why _did_ you pick me up?”

Ronan hesitated. It was out of the ordinary for Ronan to do anything even resembling hesitation — he was not known for backing down, for pulling back, for minding boundaries. Adam didn’t quite know what to make of Ronan’s hesitation, at least not until Ronan opened his mouth, let out a long-suffering sigh, and said, “If you’re in the car, I’m less likely to wrap myself around a telephone pole on a whim.”

It was a sentence that got worse with every word. It was a confession and a declaration and a prayer and secret, all things that Adam avoided when given the chance, all things that Adam hadn’t realized he wanted from Ronan until that moment. The subject matter of the sentence, though, once he dove past _if you’re in the car_ , was something he very much did _not_ want, and he felt his entire body turn toward Ronan in the passenger seat as he leveled him with a stare that could only be described as _concerned._

“Ronan,” Adam said slowly, giving it the weight it deserved, “Do you think about killing yourself?”

Ronan rolled his eyes dramatically, and the sheer audacity of that action nearly sent Adam through the roof. “Relax,” said Ronan, taking a turn one-handed. “It’s not like that.”

Adam sputtered. “You _just_ said—”

“Yeah, Parrish, I know what I said. It’s — fuck — don’t you ever — when you’re driving, don’t you ever just get the random impulse to, like, just jerk the steering wheel and end it all? Even though you don’t _really_ want to?”

“I…” Adam trailed off, considering. “I mean, like, once or twice, but not… regularly.”

Ronan sighed again, the fingers of his left hand tapping an irregular rhythm against the leather of the steering wheel. “It’s like, it’s a real thing, or whatever. The French have a name for it, I think. I’m not suicidal. Don’t go telling Dick I’m fucking suicidal.”

“I won’t,” said Adam, and he didn’t realize that he meant it until the words left his mouth. “As long as you can promise me that you aren’t going to hurt yourself.”

This time when Ronan rolled his eyes, it was more good-naturedly. He raised an eyebrow at the road, seemed to deem it straight and empty enough to be survivable without his undivided attention, and then turned to meet Adam’s eye. “Adam,” he said, still clutching the gearshift with more force than was necessary. “I promise that I’m not going to hurt or kill myself.”

For no reason at all — or at least, Adam told himself it was for no reason at all, it _definitely_ had nothing to do with Ronan calling him by his first name rather than his surname — Adam felt heat in his cheekbones. “Okay,” he said, altogether too softly, and then he cleared his throat. “Okay.” 

Ronan finally turned his intense stare back to the road. He seemed to be over the whole concept of _conversation_ , but Adam’s dumb, newly-insomniac brain did not get the memo.

“So, when I’m in the car, it’s easier to resist that — that impulse?”

Ronan raised his left wrist to his mouth with a groan, bringing up his knees to hold the steering wheel steady as he chewed anxiously at his leather bands. “Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled against the bracelets and his own flesh. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

It was obvious that Adam was starting to push too far. Ronan’s voice was a degree sharper than it had been before. “Hell if I know. Maybe I don’t wanna have to explain to Gansey that I totalled my car _and_ turned you into a parapalegic.”

Adam tilted his head this way and that, thinking. Finally, he said, “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

Ronan scowled as the Beemer hit the rumble strip, finally bringing his hand back to the wheel and easing back firmly into his lane. “No,” he agreed after a beat too long. His voice was softer now, more solemn. “No, I don’t think so either.”

Somewhere deep in his brain, Adam filed that away, too, to dissect and analyze at a later time. His brain wanted to push further, demand more, but he caught himself before he could do any real damage. Taking great care to sound and look neutral, he said instead, “Blue and Gansey are dating, right?”

“Ah,” said Ronan, followed by an incoherent noise from the back of his throat. He fidgeted in his seat, looking uncomfortable in an entirely new way. “I mean, that’s not really my business.”

Adam scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. “Oh, come on, don’t you play this game with me, too. I can handle it. I’m not as — as — as _fragile_ as you’d all like to think.”

“ _Fragile_?” Ronan repeated, giving Adam a double-take. “Dude, nobody thinks you’re _fragile_. Jesus. Their guilt isn’t your problem. And I don’t think — I would tell you, if I knew. But I don’t know, not for sure. I mean, yeah, they aren’t exactly subtle, but nobody’s told me shit, and I trade in dreams, not rumors and gossip.”

Okay, that was fair. The tension in Adam’s shoulders lessened a fraction. “I don’t know why they think they need to hide it,” he huffed, slouching slightly. He resisted the instinct to duck his head with shame. “It’s not like I’m mad. That they’re dating, I mean. I _am_ mad that they think I will be mad, though.”

Ronan hummed as if that were a reasonable statement. “So you don’t care that Gansey stole your girlfriend?” he asked, aiming for nonchalance and missing by a mile. Adam had the odd impulse to grin; he barely restrained himself.

“Gansey didn’t steal her,” he heard himself saying, defending Gansey and Blue even though it wasn’t necessary, even though it wasn’t his problem. “We broke up amicably.” Ronan snorted at that, so Adam corrected himself. “Okay, she dumped me, but not for Gansey. And, as Blue would say, she is a _person_ , not a _possession_ , so it’s not like anybody could _steal_ her anyway.”

“But really,” Ronan continued as if Adam hadn’t said anything. “What happened to, like, bros before hos, or whatever? Doesn’t it go against, like, bro code, or something, for Gansey to date your ex?”

Adam exhaled in something reminiscent of a laugh. “I swear, this bothers you more than it bothers me.” The later it got, the more he forgot to clip his vowels, and the more he forgot to care. His Henrietta accent bled out into every word he said. “I don’t care about the ‘bro code’ or whatever the hell you’re talking about. If she makes him happy, and he makes her happy, then they should be together. I _want_ them to be together. I don’t want _me_ to be the thing standing between them.”

Ronan seemed to consider this as he turned abruptly onto a dirt road. “So you’re not still in love with her?” He was too casual, too neutral, to actually _be_ casual or neutral. He had said that Blue and Gansey weren’t subtle, but it wasn’t like Ronan had anything he could teach them. Adam bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.

“I was never in love with her,” he said, more to the windshield than to Ronan. His voice was deceptively soft. “I liked her. Past tense. It wasn’t right. It was never right. I know that now.”

“ _Right_ ,” Ronan repeated, as if he had to taste the word on his own tongue. He looked over at Adam. “What is _right_?”

Adam turned fully in his seat, meeting Ronan’s fierce gaze with his own, blue against blue. He felt the corner of his lips dragging up in a lopsided smile. “I think I’ll know it when I see it.”

Ronan smiled back, not at all monstrous for once, and he was still smiling when he turned to face the road once more.


	2. CHAPTER TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the chapter that is canon-divergent!!! this chapter is an alternate get-together chapter, featuring more banter, bed-sharing, and cabeswater (aka my three favorite things)! i hope you like it!

They ended up not going anywhere at all. They drove as far out into the boonies as Ronan dared, eyeing his gas tank warily, and then he turned around, bringing them back the way they came. Their conversation died out after a while, and the vehicle filled with comfortable silence, broken up by random occasional comments from either boy.

“Was Gansey asleep when you left?”

“Oh, yeah, sprawled out right in the middle of Main Street. It was _supremely undignified._ ”

“Huh?”

“God, you’re brain dead. The Henrietta model.”

“Oh. Right.”

More silence, and then:

“D’you got work later?”

“Yeah, I have a shift at the factory at noon and then Boyd’s at four.”

“What time do you get off?”

“Eight.”

“You’re gonna be dead on your feet, Parrish.”

“Eh, it’s nothing new.”

More silence, and then:

“That — yawn! That was a yawn!”

“Shut up, no it wasn’t.”

“Psh, I thought you never lied. I know a yawn when I see one, Lynch.”

“Okay, fine, it was a yawn. And what the fuck about it?”

“You’re tired!”

“So what? Aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but I’m not the resident insomniac.”

“I think tonight, we’re _both_ the resident insomniacs.”

“Whatever, I’m not the one who yawned.”

“God, why is it so significant that I _yawned_? You realize that I _am_ a living creature with, like, normal human needs or whatever, right?”

“Huh. You sure about that?”

“Shut up.”

“No, but seriously, Lynch, you need sleep.”

“I think _maybe_ that should wait till I’m not driving, but thanks for the input.”

“God, I hate you.”

More silence, and then, as they pulled into the St. Agnes parking lot:

“So, uh, thanks, I guess.”

“Ugh, way to make a situation awkward, Parrish. You don’t have to thank me. Just go up to your room and get a couple hours of sleep. Jesus.”

A pause. “Do you, um, do you wanna come up?”

Another pause. “Why would I do that?” 

Yet another pause. “I just mean, you know, you’re tired, and you’re probably gonna sleep, and, uh, who knows? What if you dream something up? Like, a horde of wasps, or something?”

One more pause. “Okay.”

And so, with that, Ronan turned off the Beemer and unbuckled his seatbelt, moving slowly and cautiously, as if Adam was a wild animal who might get spooked and rescind the offer. It was amusing, the care that Ronan took with each of his movements, the precision — how many nights had Ronan spent on his apartment floor? How many St. Agnes Sleepovers had there been? Certainly too many to count by now. This was nothing new, not by a long shot, but neither boy could deny that it felt different as they climbed the stairs, Ronan two steps behind Adam the entire way, dawn just barely breaking over the horizon.

As Adam fished his keys out his pocket, Ronan nudged his shoe with his own. “You didn’t have to come up with an excuse to lure me up here, Parrish,” he remarked.

Adam unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold. “Kinda felt like I did.”

Ronan stepped inside the small apartment, ducking his head so as not to bang it against the rafters. “Well,” he said dramatically, shucking his leather jacket without a care in the world. “Now that you’ve got me up here,” he kicked off his boots one by one, revelling in the way they thudded disdainfully against the rough wooden flooring, “what’re you gonna do with me?”

Adam, who was sitting on the edge of his bed untying his shoelaces, looked up at Ronan wordlessly, arching one sharp eyebrow.

Ronan raised an eyebrow in return. “Anything but murder,” he suggested amiably, heading for the bathroom. “I do _not_ have the energy for you to go all Norman Bates on me while I’m in the shower.”

“The shower?” Adam finished kicking off his shoes. “You’re taking a shower?”

“What? Is that not allowed?” Ronan’s voice called out through the half-open bathroom door, but he was already turning on the water. Adam almost made a comment about the water bill, but bit it back at the last second. As if sensing Adam’s thought process, Ronan added, “I’ll be in and out. I’ve just gotta rinse off all this dirt.”

The sound of the cheap shower curtain being tugged around told Adam that Ronan had stepped into the shower; the door was still ajar. Over the sound of running water, Adam asked, “Dirt?”

He could hear the clicking sound of Ronan opening his bottle of body wash. “Yeah, dirt. It’s this stuff that makes up the ground — thought you all of people would be familiar with the concept.”

Adam scoffed, but he didn’t have it in him to be offended. When Gansey poked and prodded, there was something careless about it; when Ronan poked and prodded, it was intentional, but it wasn’t meant to be painful; at least, not for Adam. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Ronan, who had been humming to himself as he awaited Adam’s reply, just said, “Come on, Trailer Park, I know you can do better than that.”

“Trailer Park?” Adam repeated, walking toward the stack of plastic drawers he used as a dresser. He stepped out of his jeans and pulled on a pair of threadbare sweatpants. “I mean, if that’s the best _you_ can do, I think we’re matched for wits.” He shrugged off his ratty t-shirt and pulled on a clean, equally-ratty t-shirt, then grabbed another change of clothes for when Ronan inevitably asked for something clean to wear. He placed the folded up shirt, sweats, and boxers on the counter and headed back toward his bed.

The shower turned off. “In both our defenses, we’re both kinda fried,” said Ronan, his voice clearer as he stepped out of the shower. It occurred to Adam too late that he’d be using Adam’s towel. “Once we both get a couple hours of sleep in, we’ll be much wittier.”

Adam hummed agreeably, slipping beneath his secondhand comforter. It was a bit scratchy, but it was warm enough. “I know _I_ will,” he said, resting his head back on his one, thin pillow. “You, though? You’re a lost cause.”

“Fuck you, Parrish,” said Ronan without heat as he stepped out of the bathroom. He was still damp, water droplets shimmering on his pale skin, and wearing nothing but Adam’s towel tied casually around his waist. “D’you have a change of—”

Adam interrupted with a vague wave of his hand in the direction of the counter. “Over there,” he mumbled through a yawn, trying very hard not to look at Ronan. He already knew that he would like what he saw; that was the entire problem. Even with his eyes trained on the cobwebbed ceiling, he could see Ronan’s face in his periphery, his eyes studying Adam inscrutably. Adam just stared at the rafters even harder.

On the other side of the room, there was a rustling sound as Ronan stepped out of the towel, and more rustling sounds as he changed into Adam’s clothes. Adam did not dare lower his head until he was sure that Ronan was dressed. Ronan was still looking at him, expression unreadable. 

Adam cocked his head slightly, a strange angle as he was laying in bed. “What’s up?” he asked, his words coming out far more slurred than they had any right to be. He realized suddenly that his eyelids were drooping. Sleep had finally decided to come calling. He could only hope to hold it at bay for a few more moments at most.

Ronan, inexplicably, just smiled. Another one of those bright, not-terrifying smiles. “Go to sleep, Parrish,” he murmured, scratching the back of his neck absently.

Adam rolled on his side and patted the empty half of his twin-sized mattress. “You too,” he said, nearly incoherent. Ronan approached him, still slow and steady like Adam was a feral cat, and then sat down on the floor beside the mattress. Adam frowned.

“You can sleep up here,” Adam said, suggested, begged. He wasn’t sure what the tone of his voice was conveying anymore. He wasn’t sure that he cared. “The floor’s… uncomfy.”

That pulled a chuckle from Ronan. “Uncomfy it is,” he confirmed sagely, his thin lips pulled into an uneven smirk. He nodded, but he was looking down, as if in guilt. “It’s fine, though.”

If possible, Adam just frowned harder. “No, it’s not.” He was pretty sure his accent was swallowing his sentences whole. He couldn’t really hear his own voice, though. “You’re warm,” he continued, pulling back the comforter in what was supposed to be an inviting manner. “C’mon, Ronan.”

At the sound of his first name on Adam’s lips, Ronan’s eyes flickered. His hand rubbed idly at the sheet where Adam had pulled the blanket away. “I might bring something back,” he said slowly, defiant. Adam rolled his eyes (as much as he could, what with them being mostly closed and all).

“‘S fine.” Somewhere, he thought fuzzily that if Ronan brought anything back anywhere in the apartment, they were both pretty much fucked. He didn’t say it out loud. “‘M a light sleeper. ‘S fine.”

In the distance, a church bell chimed. Adam thanked any God that existed that St. Agnes did not currently have a functioning bell. Something inside Ronan snapped; he sighed, deeply and forlornly, and then climbed into Adam’s bed, sliding underneath the comforter in one distinct, fluid motion. After a moment, he cocked an eyebrow at Adam, daring him to object or reveal that this was an elaborate joke, but all Adam could do was lose his last bit of self control and flop his head down on Ronan’s broad shoulder.

“Oh,” Ronan said after a moment, breathless. He sounded far more punched-out than he should, considering how the weight of Adam’s entire body probably couldn’t throw him off-balance in a fight. “That’s — oh.”

“‘S this okay?” asked Adam; or at least, his mouth asked it. His brain was almost completely, blissfully, empty for once.

“Yeah,” Ronan said in a hurry, and his arm slid around Adam, not really holding him in place but holding him _steady_. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

Adam let out a contented noise and let one arm drape around Ronan’s middle lightly, seeking contact more than anything else. “Ronan?” he said softly after a second, his mouth muffled where it was half pressed against the sleeve of Ronan’s — Adam’s — shirt.

“Adam?” Ronan whispered in reply.

 _Adam_ , Adam thought. _He called me Adam._ Out loud, he said, “Go to sleep.”

Ronan harrumphed. “You, too.”

Adam smiled, and he did.

Adam did _not_ want to wake up.

“Adam,” Ronan’s voice was saying, maybe in real life, maybe in a dream. Adam wasn’t sure; Ronan had been in his dream, but he suddenly couldn’t remember the context. He squeezed his eyes shut harder, willing himself to fall back into unconsciousness even as a hand shook his shoulder lightly. “Adam. Parrish. C’mon, wake up, dude.”

The shaking lasted a few more seconds, and Adam’s mind cleared enough to allow him to realize he would not be burrowing back into his dream after all. He made an incomprehensible noise and rolled over, away from Ronan’s ceaseless shaking, his voice —

and rolled straight off the bed.

“Jesus, Parrish,” Ronan muttered, but his voice was more fond than exasperated. “Well, at least you’re awake now.”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” mumbled Adam, but his mouth was pressed flat against the dusty floor and his words were incoherent. He pushed himself into a sitting position, raised an eyebrow at Ronan laying casually in his bed, and then let his memories wash over him.

Ah, yes, that was right, he _invited_ Ronan into his bed. In fact, he hadn’t taken ‘no’ for an answer, had he? Adam had to physically stop himself from cringing at the memories of his own behavior. It wasn’t that he hadn’t meant any of the things he said or did — no, on the contrary, he had meant them all _so much_. What he really regretted was the possibility that he had made Ronan uncomfortable.

Of course, if Ronan was uncomfortable, he was not letting on. “You’re gonna be late for work,” he commented, eyes closed, hands behind his head. He looked like the very picture of comfort. “Shitbox is gonna take forever to start.”

Adam rubbed his forehead where he had smacked it against the splintery floor. “Damn it. What time is it?”

“Eleven-thirty,” said Ronan without opening his eyes. Adam shot off the floor in a heartbeat.

He got ready for work in record time, already resigned to biking to work instead of wrestling with the Hondayota’s motor for fifteen minutes, but when he flew into the kitchen to make a couple pieces of toast, he realized that Ronan had gotten dressed, too, and was putting on his boots.

“Where are you going?” Adam asked, sounding more hostile than he intended. He pressed down the button on his toaster ($5 at Goodwill, such a bargain).

Ronan looked up, raising both eyebrows. “I’m gonna drive you to work, dipshit.”

Adam snorted, then cocked his head at Ronan. “Wait, really?”

“No, I’m just putting on my boots to laze around your apartment all day,” Ronan deadpanned. “Yeah, really. Honestly, how you’re top of our class, I’ll never know.”

Adam flipped him off. “Maybe it’s because I actually go to class.”

It was Ronan’s turn to snort. “I go to class,” he objected.

“One class. One class does not count. And you don’t even go to that class anymore.” The toast popped up, and Adam grabbed it immediately, barely noticing the way it scorched his fingertips. He was suddenly aware of the existence of manners. As he put one piece of the toast in his mouth, he held the other out to Ronan, eyebrows raised.

Ronan just shook his head. “Nah. Come on.” He led the way out of the apartment and down the stairs, pulling his keys from his jacket pocket and unlocking the BMW remotely as soon as they were in the parking lot. They were both quiet as they got in and Ronan started the car, pulling onto the road with far more urgency than the situation required.

It wasn’t until they were at the factory, still ten minutes early for his shift, that Adam realized what it meant for him to receive a ride from Ronan. “Oh,” he breathed, his hand on the door handle. “I, um, I have a shift—”

“At Boyd’s, at four. Yeah. I know. Are you going directly there from here or do you get off here earlier than that?” The intensity of Ronan’s gaze cut through Adam like a knife.

“I, um, I get off at 3:30 here, so I should just go directly there,” Adam said quietly.

Ronan nodded in confirmation. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at 3:30.”

Adam opened the door, nodding, and then thought of something. “Oh, um,” he began ineloquently, shoving a hand deep into his pocket, “here.” He handed Ronan his keys, ignoring his sharply raised eyebrow. “In case you wanna, you know, hang around the apartment or whatever while I work.” Ronan nodded once, quickly, and then Adam was out of the vehicle and heading into the factory.

Adam’s first shift passed by quickly, uneventfully, his tasks just challenging enough to require his full attention but not so all-encompassing that they were vastly unpleasant. He was tired, but when wasn’t he? When he finally reentered the sunny parking lot at 3:32, the Beemer was already parked comfortably in the shade, Ronan’s head leaned back against the headrest and his eyes closed.

“Hey,” Adam said as he opened the passenger-side door, and Ronan cracked one eyelid at him just to give him a properly judgmental side-eye glance.

“Hey,” Ronan hummed, not moving to start the car.

Adam took a second just to look at him. Ronan was wearing fresh clothes now — his own clothes, not the slightly-too-small, slightly-too-worn contents of Adam’s makeshift closet — and he had definitely showered again, using his own products. The knuckles of his right hand were wrapped in clean gauze, and his face was freshly shaven. He had definitely been to Monmouth or the Barns while Adam was working. 

“Here,” Ronan said after a second, his eyes still closed. He was holding something out to Adam: a greasy fast-food bag that had been sitting in his lap. It was still warm, and Adam took it warily, an argument on the tip of his tongue. Ronan beat him to the punch. “I used your shower and some of your body wash. Now we’re even.”

Logically, Adam knew that if he tried hard enough, he could poke a hole in Ronan’s point. But emotionally, he didn’t want to do that. He swallowed once, deeply, and then opened the bag and pulled out a long, salty french fry. “Thanks.”

Ronan finally opened his eyes and sat up straight, but he didn’t even glance at Adam as he turned the key in the ignition and began to navigate his way out of the parking lot. “There’s a water in the cupholder,” he said offhandedly, taking a turn too fast. With his right hand, Adam reached up to hold onto the handle above his door.

The drive to Boyd’s was short — even shorter than usual, with Ronan at the wheel — and sweetly silent. It wasn’t until they were parked haphazardly in the back that Ronan said, “You get off at eight, right?”

Adam swallowed the bite he had just taken of hamburger and nodded. “Yeah.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door, turning to Ronan at the last second to ask, “I’ll, uh, see you then?”

Ronan nodded, gave a two-fingered salute, and began to pull away before Adam even had the door fully shut.

Although working at the garage was usually Adam’s favorite of his jobs, his shift that evening felt as though it lasted a hundred times longer than his shift at the factory earlier that afternoon. It seemed that every vehicle in the shop was there for the simplest of tasks, leaving Adam’s mind free to wander. He thought incessantly of Ronan on the phone, Ronan in the driver’s seat, Ronan in the shower, Ronan in his bed, Ronan in the parking lot. The changing of spark plugs and oil were not interesting enough tasks to keep his focus. He had aged a hundred years by the time he was finally clocking out.

“G’night,” Adam called politely in the direction of Boyd’s office as he finally left the garage at 8:02; through a glass window with the shades pulled up, Boyd looked up from his desk and waved. Adam blew through the back door, relieved to see the Beemer waiting for him in nearly the exact spot it had dropped him off.

“Parrish,” Ronan said the moment Adam opened the door. Whereas earlier he had been avoidant of Adam’s gaze, his attention, he now seemed to be counting on it. There was something electric and alive in Ronan’s eyes as he greeted him. “Long day?”

Adam slid into the seat easily, slamming the door in a way he hoped Ronan could appreciate. He belted himself in. “You have no idea.”

Ronan’s grin was effervescent as he sped out of the lot. He rolled down all four windows as soon as they were on the road, but his music remained off, as if he was giving Adam the space and freedom to make a conversation if he so chose. Adam, who felt pretty damn alive himself, decided to try it out.

“Where the hell are we going?”

Ronan’s teeth glinted in the light of the streetlamps they passed. “Where do you wanna go?”

Adam couldn’t help but grin back. “Anywhere.”

Ronan floored it.

_Anywhere_ , in Ronan speak, could have meant anything.

It could have meant the Barns, or the boonies, or another goddamn state. It could have meant going up the mountain, or doing donuts in the lot outside of Monmouth, or driving east till they hit ocean. They could have gone _anywhere_.

And yet, Ronan drove them to Cabeswater.

He pulled the parking brake with ease, turned the Beemer off, and slid out of his seat before Adam could even object. In fact, Ronan was already past the treeline before Adam was bursting out of the car, following him at a run.

“You know, Lynch,” huffed Adam as he caught up to his companion, “I love Cabeswater as much as the next guy, but—”

Ronan interrupted him without malice. “Consider your next words very carefully, Parrish,” he said, pressing one broad hand to the bark of a nearby tree. 

“Yeah,” whispered Adam with a quick shake of his head. “What I mean to say is… why here?”

They moved deeper into the forest, Ronan reaching out to caress nearly every tree they passed, and he was quiet for so long that Adam just assumed he wasn’t getting an answer. He had just about come to terms with the thought when Ronan finally spoke. “This is the only place that can contain me,” he said, so quietly that, for a moment, Adam supposed he might have imagined it.

Once the words sunk in as _real_ and _Ronan’s_ , Adam found himself pausing to lean against the side of a mossy tree trunk, his brain working overtime to reconcile the words with everything else that he already knew about Ronan. Truly, it all fit together pretty well, except for the fact that Ronan had actually said this out loud; the thought, Adam could imagine him having. Verbal command of the words, however… 

“The others,” Adam began, his eyes finding Ronan without prompting from his brain, “Blue and Gansey, they make this place magical.” Ronan tilted his head slightly, meeting Adam’s gaze, waiting to hear what he had to say. “But for us… it’s the other way around. Cabeswater makes _us_ magical.”

Ronan nodded slowly, a look on his face that was equal parts wonder and surprise and something untouchable. “I knew you’d get it,” he murmured, one hand trailing down the rough bark of a tree as he regarded Adam. “I knew it.”

Without really thinking about it, Adam pushed off from the tree. He approached Ronan slowly, each footstep slow and steady, and when he was close enough to touch, Adam ran one hand up his forearm, feather-light. “Greywaren.”

Barely repressing a shudder, Ronan nodded. His eyes followed Adam’s path around his body, just too close to be casual. He watched, quietly, and then snaked out a hand and gripped Adam’s wrist, not harshly but firm enough to stop him. Ronan’s lips parted, and he whispered, “Magician.”

They were both looking at the place where Ronan’s fingers pressed against the fine bones of Adam’s wrist, and then they were both looking into each other’s eyes, and then they were too close to see anything in focus. Adam was not aware of who moved first, who touched first, understood nothing except the gentle caress of fingertips against his jaw and the small, uneven puffs of breath just ghosting over his lips. The solid, warm press of Ronan’s body against his, the way the fabric of Ronan’s shirt bunched between Adam’s fingers at his hips.

“I want to kiss you,” Ronan breathed. His lips were so close to Adam’s that it was a crime they weren’t touching already.

Adam blinked hazily. “Yeah, kinda figured,” he mumbled, leaning in. Ronan pulled back the smallest fraction of an inch, just enough to keep the distance between them the same.

“I need you to say it.” Ronan’s words were too low to even have a tone, but if they could have, it would have been breathy and pleading. “I need you to say that you want to kiss me.”

It was a peculiar statement, but Adam was not in the mood to dissect the strange words spilling from Ronan’s mouth. He could only speak the truth. “I want to kiss you, Ronan,” he whispered.

He could feel Ronan’s lips quirk up before meeting his, and his mind cleared of every thought except one: _Yes_ , he thought, _I was correct. I do know ‘right’ when I see it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed!!! sending you all my love, hope you're all well and safe! like always, you're welcome to come interact with me on tumblr, i'm @wespers :) p.s. i forgot to mention it at the end of chapter one but the title comes from new years day by taylor swift!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed this! like i said, if you're interested in getting a second part that is not-so canon compliant (just an alternate get-together) it should be posted within a day or two! as always, you are welcome to come interact with me on tumblr, i'm @wespers :) hope you're all doing well and staying safe!


End file.
